Tributes Index - Avenue of Flags

Charles Lenard Reefer

Reefer, Charles Lenard

Jamestown

U.S. Army – Vietnam

Charles Lenard Reefer went to school in Elderton, about half way between Kittanning and Indiana, PA. He left before graduating from high school. He tried to enlist in the Army, but he was turned down for medical reasons.

He moved to Jamestown, PA, when he was 18, after his mother passed away. In Jamestown he lived with his sister, Martha McHenry, and worked at Steel Car in Greenville. There he received his draft notice. When he went in for his physical, he was found fit for military service. It seems as if draft quotas could cure a lot of medical shortcomings.

When Charlie arrived at A Company, 5th Battalion, 46th infantry in Quang Ngai Province, he may have been surprised to find Rodger McElhaney there, who lived just down the road from him in Jamestown, PA. Whatever delight he had in that ended on July 16, 1969, when PFC McElhaney was killed in action.

Charlie himself outlived Rodger by only 23 days. He was killed by an explosive device on August 7, 1969.

According to friends in Jamestown, Charlie was full of fun, a very nice person. His nephew posted a tribute on the web site of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund on May 25, 2001:

“It’s been such a long time…time that you missed so many things…times that you should have seen. It’s been a hell of a ride…you would have liked it…instead the ride took you from us, now both you and my dad are sharing that walk in the green fields of elephant grass. I thank you for what you gave and what you did for me…I took your ride, only mine was in the Corps…and my ride left me get off before the track came to an end. I remember you…I remember the night of the BBQ when you left us…find peace…Good Hunting Bro….Semper Fi“

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel W20 Line 109

William Rauber

Rauber, William

Wheatland, PA

U.S. Army – Vietnam

When he joined the army, William Rauber of Wheatland was following a military tradition established by his father, Drago Rauber. But Drago was never a part of the American armed forces. Born in Croatia, he served in the Croatian and British armies.

William was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1948. He was three years old when his parents emigrated to the United States. They settled in Wheatland, so William attended Farrell High School. He enlisted in the army in March, 1967.

He arrived in Vietnam on April 2, 1968, assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 9th Infantry Division. That made him part of the Mobile Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta, probably heading into combat aboard the descriptively named Brown Water Navy.

The Mobile Riverine Force was a joint military operation between the U.S. Navy and the 9th Infantry Division. The soldiers were inserted into combat and extracted either via modified Navy vessels or helicopters. One Riverine veteran wrote that the typical tactical plan was to go up and down the rivers and canals until they were shot at. Then the Navy would blast the area with .50 caliber machine guns and other weapons, then land the infantry to pursue the enemy. It was dangerous, wet, and intense duty.

He was there barely enough time to get his feet wet. Probably a couple of weeks after arriving, he told his parents in a letter that “tomorrow we are going out for two to five days.” They received that letter the day after they were notified that he had been killed in action on April 25.

He was survived by his parents,three sisters, and two brothers.

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel 52E Line 10

Allen Neil Palm

Palm, Allen Neil

Greenville, PA

U.S. Army – Vietnam

Allen Neil Palm was a Greenville native, 1968 graduate of Reynolds High School, who ended up tromping through the marshes of the Mekong Delta with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mobile Riverine Force.

“Letters from the front were rare and are now long lost,” wrote his sister, Carol, “but I remember that his complaints were few – only that his feet were suffering from the march through swamps.”

Friends and family would not have expected many complaints. They were used to his unassuming attitude and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others.

“He and his brother Wes both wrestled at Reynolds,” Carol said. “One of them had to quit to help Dad on the farm. Allen quit so Wes could continue to wrestle. That’s what kind of a kid he was.”

After graduating from high school, Allen attended the New Castle School of Trades and worked as a material cutter in the Westinghouse in Sharon. When he was called into military service in October, 1968, Allen made no big fuss.

“We would never know what he thought about going half a world away to fight in the jungle,” Carol said. “It was simply his duty. He had already seen friends and neighbors ship out, so he prepared as best he could to leave his family and home to serve his country.”

Details of that service are difficult to find, but as a soldier in the 9th Division, we know that he served in the Mekong Delta. According to accounts by other soldiers, one of the most common tactics was to cruise up and down the countless waterways on the Navy’s modified ships until they were shot at. The ship would return fire, then drop off the infantry to assault and destroy the enemy. Sometimes they would be out for days on end, plenty of time to get their feet very wet.

Ninth Division troops would also be inserted into known enemy territory by helicopter and retrieved the same way when their mission was accomplished.

On December 5, 1968, Allen was killed by enemy booby trap while he was on patrol. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel W37 Line 47

Valentine Ambrose Ochs

Ochs, Valentine

Ochs, Valentine Ambrose

Sandy Lake PA

U.S. Army – Vietnam

It was one thing to find an enemy unit in Vietnam. It was quite another to destroy it. When things weren’t going their way, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army were very adept at slipping away into the jungle to fight another day.

The solution was to cordon off the unit – completely surround it so it couldn’t escape. The classic example of that was the action at the end of April and beginning of May, 1968, a couple of miles northwest of Huế.

Valentine Ambrose Ochs, a mortar man from Sandy Lake serving with the 101st Airborne Division, was involved in that action.

An enemy force of unknown size was discovered to be holed up in the village of Phuoc Yen, in a bend of the Song Bo River. Fortunately, the NVA forces inside the village also didn’t know the strength of the force that would be thrown against them. In the early hours of the operation, they could have escaped by attacking the first elements being put in place. Before they did, they were surrounded by companies from three American battalions, elements from local Popular Forces, and the “Black Panther” Company of the 1st South Vietnamese Army.

With the enemy completely trapped, the American forces attacked relentlessly with artillery, helicopter gunships, and Air Force figher-bombers. After five days, 107 NVA soldiers surrendered, leaving the bodies of 419 of their comrades in the village. By this time, our attacking forces knew that they had eliminated the 8th Battalion, 90th NVA Regiment. Until that day, no other NVA force had surrendered en masse to an American military unit.

Unfortunately, PFC Ochs did not live to see that happen. He was killed by small arms fire during the battle, just 28 days after he had arrived in Vietnam.

He was the son of Mr. & Mrs. Charles Ochs, Sandy Lake.

On the web site www.vvmf.org/thewall, his nephew, Tobias C. Ochs, posted the following tribute:

“Valentine Ochs was a kind caring young man. He loved his country and served it well. the news of Valentine Ochs’s death came on his dad’s birthday. All seven of his brothers and sisters will never forget their older brother. He was killed on April-28, 1968, a day that his family and friends will never forget.”

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel 52E Line 41

Reuben James Neal

Neal, Reuben James

Wheatland, PA

U.S. Marine Corps – Vietnam

In the spring of 1966, the North Vietnamese Army started inserting large forces into Quang Tri Province, just south of the border with North Vietnam. Units of the Marine Corps were moved into the province to deal with this problem. But the defensive strategy included the installation of artillery bases to establish interlocking bands of artillery fire. The base that held it all together was called Camp Carroll, about 13 miles northeast of Khe Sanh. To minimize the loss of American troops, the American military fired more than seven million tons of shells on targets in Vietnam.

In May, 1967, the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines of the 3rd Marine Division was tasked with defending Camp Carroll. Command Chronologies of that battalion indicate they didn’t just dig foxholes and wait for enemy attacks. They continually conducted patrols and unilateral offensive actions throughout their assigned sector.

Corporal Reuben James Neal from Wheatland was assigned to L Company of the 3/9 Marines. It was rugged, dangerous duty. With Army as well as Marine units operating in the same area, failures in communication sometimes ended in disaster. The Command Chronology for May 16, 1967, includes this entry: “Company L and Battalion Command Group YD 129657 was taken under fire by Army security units with convoy moving down Route 556. Received small arms and .50 caliber fire. Army was reconing area by fire which resulted in one USMC KIA.”

That Marine was Corporal Reuben James Neal.

The son of Georgette Taylor of Wheatland, he had enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1958 after attending Farrell High School. He planned on making it a career.

“He was a tremendous athlete in football, track and field, low and high hurdle,” said Fred Jarrett, a high school friend. “He was a rugged guy, one of those people who stays on your mind.”

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel 20E Line 9

Ralph Oliver Murphy III

Murphy, Ralph Oliver III

Grove City, PA

U.S. Army – Vietnam

During the Vietnam War, the United States military fought a limited war against an enemy who was fighting an all-out war. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army could cross the international borders with impunity, attacking the U.S. forces in Vietnam from bases in Cambodia and Laos, while our military was prohibited from attacking those bases – at least technically, and at least at first.

From early on, however, Special Forces conducted “black op” raids into Laos and Cambodia with units from the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN – Army of the Republic of Vietnam). As the war progressed, larger units of the American forces themselves crossed the borders to attack enemy strongholds.

A guy named Mike explains why and wherefore on the web site www.armchairgeneral.com/forums:

“It was well known that this area in Cambodia was a NVA sanctuary with vast amounts of stores and bases. The routes they used were known by us as “Adams Trail” and “The Serges Jungle Highway.” One of our responsibilities was to interfere with these as much as possible. The idea was going in with boots on the ground to destroy as much of it as possible to help cover our withdrawal. The anti-war faction had a field day — turning it into a major invasion of another country. It was 99% wilderness as shown and a lot was accomplished. SOG [Studies and Observations Group] had spent a lot of time and effort scouting out that area. . . . My camp was just south and east of the border and we were on the receiving end of a lot of the stuff stored there. It was often safer to be out on recon than in camp.”

Ralph Oliver Murphy III was with them in Cambodia when he died from multiple fragmentation wounds.

Kevin Scanlon, a fellow soldier, wrote on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial web site: “I trained with Ralph @ Ft. Jackson, SC & went to Nam with him in ’70. I didn’t know Ralph real well but was sad to hear when I returned home from Nam & Cambodia that he did not. He was a quiet but very good soldier as I remember in AIT [Advanced Individual Training]. . . . I think about you guys all the time! God Bless you Ralph, you are a Hero.”

Ralph was a 1966 graduate of Grove City High School. He was the first person from Mercer County to be killed in Cambodia.

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel W10 Line 13

Cecil G. Moyer

Greenville, PA

U.S. Air Force – Vietnam

On November 29, 1970, Captain Cecil Gerald Moyer was piloting a C-123 aircraft that had just taken off from Cam Ranh Bay Air Force Base in Vietnam. Twelve miles south of the air base, the plane crashed in the jungle for undetermined reasons. The plane carried 32 Americans and 12 South Vietnamese. The Americans were officially listed as missing in action. When the plane was located on December 5, two non-commissioned officers were rescued from the wreckage . Further searches discovered the bodies of the remaining personnel. One of those was Captain Moyer.

Another C-123 crashed in the same vicinity several days before. All 79 people on that plane were killed.

Many years later, Captain Moyer’s wife, Sally, was serving as a Stephen Minister at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center for many years. She came across an idea that inspired her: a portable chapel for use in patient rooms and family waiting areas throughout the hospital.

“It was something that just jumped out at me, something practical that was certainly needed by our patients, their family members and our own caregivers,” said Sally. “It was also a fitting memorial for my husband and those who died with him in service to our country.”

At the chapel’s dedication ceremony, the hospital’s chaplain, Jeff Ryan, made an observation that is too often forgotten. He pointed out that if Captain Moyer and those who died with him had lived, they would be getting ready for retirement and enjoying their grandchildren.

The Captain Moyer was born in Greenville to Mr. and Mrs. Cecil G. Moyer. He graduated from Greenville High School in 1963, and from Thiel College in 1967.

He entered the Air Force in 1967, and was assigned to the 315th Airlift Wing in Vietnam.

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel W6 Line 94

PFC Dennis Keith Millison

Dennis Keith Millison

Sharon, PA

U.S. Marine Corps – Vietnam

What was it like to be a rifleman in a Marine company on night operations in Vietnam? At times, utterly confusing, terrifying – and sometimes fatal. That’s what PFC Dennis Keith Millison experienced on February 26, 1969. He was on a search and destroy mission with his unit – Company L, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines.

The report in the newspaper said that he “died Friday of fragmentary wounds suffered when an enemy mine exploded in Quang Tri Province, near the demilitarized zone.” That gives no sense of what really happened

We can get a slight, distant glimpse of what it was like by reading declassified official handwritten reports made by a commander during that night’s battle. These are not after-action reports written in the comfort of a base camp, but notes made during and immediately after the fighting. It’s difficult to read because the handwriting is understandably scribbly, and it’s filled with esoteric abbreviations. But here’s a sampling:

“Sudden tremendous amount of incoming 82 mm, RPG, satchel charges with main thrust of pull from north east finger. All maj bunkers were hit with first barrage. (CO, P, FDC, 81’s and arty plt cps). During hand to hand combat outside CP E-6 gained pomm with 2/4 who beyad supporting arty fire right on posit. in wire. Satchel charges, [other explosions] going off throughout inside perimeter. From this point on it was every man for himself. 0700 h medevac bird attempted to reach FSB Russell. From daylight to 1030h gained cas. count getting status of sit. found 25 en KIA conf. inside wire, will not be able to check outside perimeter.”

Sometime during that conflict, PFC Millison risked his life to pull a wounded friend out of harm’s way. When returning to the battle, he apparently triggered an explosive device. Records indicate that only six other Marines of the 3rd Division were killed that day.

PFC Millison was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Keith Millison of Sharon. After graduating from Sharon High School, he worked at GATX for over two years. When he received his draft notice, he chose to enlist in the Marine Corps.

He was survived by his parents, a daughter Melinda Denise, a brother Gary L., and grandmothers Mrs. Helen Harshman and Mrs. Elzetta Millison.

He was the second Sharon serviceman killed in Vietnam.

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel W31 Line 66

Donald Stephen Mihordin

Greenville, PA

U.S. Army – Vietnam

Donald Stephen Mihordin must have been an optimist. He married Carol Ann Kilgore on September 9, 1967, about a month after he had entered the Army. He had to have known that he would be going to Vietnam.

That happened on March 25, 1968, when he was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division’s Company D, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry on March 25, 1968. The Division was headquartered in Cu Chi, just northwest of Saigon. And that guaranteed that he would be involved in some serious combat.

The 25th Division had operational responsibility for Tay Ninh Province, just north of a portion of Cambodia that protrudes into Vietnam. That area of Cambodia provided a sanctuary in which Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army units could gather supplies and troops to stage attacks into South Vietnam. Until late in the war, they could be certain that the American and South Vietnamese forces would not attack across the border into Cambodia.

Tay Ninh Province was intensely disputed throughout the war, especially after the NVA increased its use as an infiltration route during 1968. The fighting was unrelenting; making any break from it welcome, indeed. In the summer of 1968, Donald was able to go on R&R to Hawaii to visit his wife, Carol Ann.

Shortly after she returned home, she learned that Donald had been killed in action.

On November 26, 1968, Donald’s unit was engaged in a bitter fight about 3 kilometers southeast of Tay Ninh City. Before the day was out, 26 Americans were dead, including eighteen from the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry. One of those was Sp4 Mihordin from Sharon, mortally wounded in the neck when he triggered a land mine.

Donald never got to see his five-week-old son, Donald.

Donald had been born in Greenville to Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Mihordin. After graduating from Hickory High School in 1965, he attended Youngstown State University until he entered the Army.

He was survived by his parents, his wife Carol Ann, son Donald, sister Charlene, and brother Richard. He was preceded in death by another brother, Jack Mihordin.

Sp4 Mihordin was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Good Conduct Medal.

He was the 19th Mercer County serviceman killed in Vietnam. He is buried in Hillcrest Memorial Park, which is now America’s Cemetery (SM).

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel W38 line 77

PFC Richard L. McNeish

Mercer, PA

U.S. Marine Corps – Vietnam

A sense of irony and humor was vital to U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. They would often take names of places they knew back home and apply them to areas in Vietnam where they served.

Happy Valley, as every Penn State fan knows very well, is the home of Penn State’s main campus in State College, PA. In Vietnam, Happy Valley was not a happy place, either for U.S. or enemy soldiers. The area was covered by thick undergrowth and elephant grass that grew as tall as ten feet. That, of course, made combat operations extremely difficult and dangerous – and made it a great place for a major Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army base camp.

It was better than great, because it was a perfect place to infiltrate men and materials for operations around Da Nang, its port facilities, and Logistics Command. From the surrounding hills, within 12 km of the city and its military operations, the enemy could fire rockets and other weapons effectively.

Defense of the area was partially the responsibility of the 1st Battalion 7th Marine Regiment. PFC Richard L. McNeish was assigned to Company B of that battalion after arriving in Vietnam on September 20, 1967. Barely more than a month later, on October 24, he went out on patrol with his unit. He was killed by an enemy explosive device.

PFC McNeish was the son of Kermith and Clara McNeish. He had enlisted in the Marine Corps during April, 1967.

PFC McNeish was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Vietnam Service Medal

He was the ninth Mercer County serviceman killed in the Vietnam War.

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel 28E Line 61